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My Interview with “The X-Factor” Contestant Tora Woloshin

“People tell me that the reason they let me go was that they knew they wouldn’t be able to make me into something that I’m not,” says 22-year old Tora Woloshin, singer, performer, and two-time contestant on a pair of the biggest reality competitions on national television.

She speaks candidly about her most recent appearance on (and elimination from) Simon Cowell’s “The X-Factor,” which debuted earlier this Fall. The show is structured similar to “American Idol,” a competition both Cowell and Woloshin have a history with; “Idol” eliminated her as well back in 2005.

“I feel like people on [these shows] really have the talent, but for some reason what they’re being made into is not as appealing as their natural selves,” she says.

Woloshin’s outward appearance can hardly be described as “natural”; a gorgeous array of tattoos (she’s got 17 of them) cascade down her slender frame; a symphony of vintage garb intertwines seamlessly with neon embellishments, dazzling patterns, and just the right amount of girly-girl ornamentation; all nestled comfortably in their dynamic chaos beneath a luscious stream of homemade platinum blonde hair. A Harajuku copycat, some might say; but in the words of the great Coco Rocha, “don’t ever confuse style with gimmick.”

Thankfully Ms. Woloshin’s blood runs thick with style.

It’s funny to see her striking wardrobe so bluntly serve as a metaphor for her demeanor; usually that’s the job of the journalist to lay bare for their reader. With Woloshin, I’m not sure I have to.

“Um, hello, I just got a call from this number?” Woloshin says, returning a phone call I’d placed to her mere minutes after our interview’s scheduled time. It was a quarter to six in the evening.

“Yes, is this Tora? This is Joey, we had an interview for six thirty tonight, so sorry I’m a little late,” I responded.

“Umm…I thought you said six? It’s only three forty-five…”

Time zones don’t translate well in Woloshin’s world. Thankfully she wasn’t up to much.

“Well, right now, I’m extremely broke,” she says. “[After these shows] they just drop you and don’t tell you why. My days consist of pilates, writing music…which takes a long time. I just recently started getting the hang of Garage Band, trying to make all the music myself.” Things clatter in the background. She laughs. Composure maintained.

She then tries to explain one of her tattoos to me, a byproduct of personal experiences she tones down her usually bubbly demeanor to reveal; her amazing style compliments her infectious presence, but it’s also a living testament to the struggles she’s battled her way through.

“My sleeve and my chestpiece are combined. It’s sort of like a map of where my heart’s been,” she says. “It’s about…well…it has biomechanics…it’s kind of my way of saying robots can’t love because they don’t have a heart…kind of like, well, if I was a robot, I wouldn’t have had my heart broken as many times as I have…it’s hard to explain…if you get it, you’ll understand what I mean…you know what I mean?”

Her chest reads “Love vs. Hate.”

Woloshin was a victim of rape at a young age, the effects of which remain with her to this day.

Her voice goes bleak.

“It all started when I was 14,” she says. “He stole my virginity. I wanted to save it until marriage. I had a couple of abusive boyfriends; I deal with a bad wrist because one of them broke it.”

She perks up.

“But I want to be able to change people’s lives with my music and with my words. I feel like I’ve been through so much in my life and millions of other people have been through the same thing,” she says. “I want to be able to bring them hope. That’s why I do [what I do].”

Woloshin has been perfecting her art since she was only two years old. She’s started taking dance and vocal lessons, from California to Arizona, when she was only four. She won a singing competition, Lucky Break, back in Tuscon.

But, while she was tearing it up onstage, a very different side of Tora was burning rubber—literally—on the streets of Tuscon. Woloshin was a drag racer by the time she was sixteen.

“Don’t tell my mom,” she says with laugh.

While her tatted and tanned complexion certainly screams to be framed amidst the backdrop of an underground drag race, Woloshin’s style functions more as a testament to her inner self versus “fitting in” with any subculture she may be associated with. Appearing on “The X-Factor” didn’t help diversify her image any further, she says.

“They didn’t tell my whole story,” she says. “They only said a couple of things; that I like cars and that I like to sing. Obviously that’s not all there is to my life.”

She says she was hoping to showcase her vocal ability even further with a rendition of “Hotel California” at judge Simon Cowell’s house; one final performance to wow him before he selected his final four (which ended up being five) contestants for the live round of shows. She told the camera crews she was nervous about forgetting the lyrics, becoming visibly shaken during a taped interview.

The editors, however, only showed one of her two performances; a rendition of The Rolling Stone’s “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” “They made me look like an idiot, like I couldn’t remember the lyrics to a ten-word song,” she says. “That was a dick move. [For ‘Hotel California’] I had a mic stand, I had a lot of emotion, and I sang it spot-on. I definitely know for a fact that they did not show that song because they knew I was going to be eliminated. Obviously they’re not going to show the better performance because the audience would have been more pissed off than they already are [at my elimination].”

And so Tora was kicked to the curb once again. Her shine, however, fails to dim, particularly in regards to her “broke-chic” vibrancy exuding from her closet. Consignment shops are a quick fix for those on a budget, she says.

“I mostly go to vintage and thrift stores before I go to the mall,” she tells me. “You can find some of the best things there. I think a person’s style should be able to make a statement of who they are. It should definitely say that.”

When asked if she considers brand names superior to no-name bargains, she pauses.

“Only when it comes to cars!” she says, giggling.

So, will you find a gorgeous menagerie of vintage couture lining the interior of Ms. Woloshin’s closet?

Well, sort of.

“My closet is not…um…very ‘presentable’ right now,” she says with a laugh. ” But I’ll invite you over to my house and you can look it over and explain it to me.”